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HILARY SWANK'S REAL-LIFE TRAINING FOR "MILLION DOLLAR BABY"
LED TO A LIFE-THREATENING INFECTION SHE DIDN'T TELL HER FILM COLLEAGUES ABOUT -- "60 MINUTES" SUNDAY ON CBS

When Hilary Swank raised a huge blister on her foot while training to play a boxer in "Million Dollar Baby," she did what she thought a real boxer would do: she popped it herself and continued her workouts. But toughing it out nearly led to checking out, the actress tells Mike Wallace. Soon she was in intense pain and facing the stern warning of a doctor telling her she had a potentially life-threatening staphylococcus infection. That's just one of the personal stories Swank tells Wallace in a profile to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday Jan. 30 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Swank, nominated for the best-actress Oscar for her role in the boxing film "Million Dollar Baby," says she regretted piercing her blister two days later. "I couldn't believe the pain. It was unbelievable and I looked down, there were streaks going up my foot," she tells Wallace. "So, I went to the doctor's that second, and he looked at me and he said, 'This is really serious. And if you would have waited two more hours, you would have been in the hospital for three weeks' and if it gets to your heart, that's it,'" Swank says the doctor told her.

She never told director and co-star Clint Eastwood, she says, because it wouldn't have been in character. "I didn't tell Clint�.The producers don't know�because in the end, that's what happens to boxers: they get blisters, they get infected. They have injuries, and they keep pushing through it," she tells Wallace.

If Swank wins the Academy Award for Best Actress, it will be the second for the 30-year-old, who won in the same category for the 1999 film "Boys Don't Cry."